The invention relates to a device for stacking and unstacking containers provided with grasping holes and more particularly for the loading and unloading of palettes with such containers, such as bottle crates and the like, comprising a gripper member having grippers adapted to be brought in and out of engagement with the said holes to pick up and deposit such container and which is mounted on a gripping carriage able to be driven on a turnover area for such crates between a pickup and a depositing site of same.
In order to bring the grippers, which are generally in the form of hooks, into and out of engagement with the holes of the containers it is necessary to pivot the grippers. In order to lift and lower the containers the grippers which have been brought into engagement with them have to perform a vertical motion. In the known arrangements this is performed by the gripping member, which for this purpose performs a vertical motion in relation to the gripping carriage. The grippers mounted on the gripping member are therefore only designed for a purely pivoting motion in relation to the gripping member. Owing to the separate performance of the lifting motion and of the pivoting motion there is not only a complex design but furthermore, as experience has shown, jerky operation and, more significantly, much idle time, which leads to a low handling rate.